The role of Personality & Behavioral values in your Professional Success
All our university life, we are taught to master our technical competencies, our grip on equations and logical skills. We are made to believe that if we earn good grades (implying better understand the taught technical concepts), we will be able to land a prestigious start to our professional careers. Although true to some extent, unfortunately we are not told (or taught) the whole story. Strong technical knowledge may get you a good job, but to keep the success sailing, one should master personality and good behavior.
A research carried out by the prestigious Carnegie Institute of Technology in the 1918 found:
Graphic Reference: National Federation for Personal Safety
85% of your financial success is due to your personality and ability to communicate, negotiate and lead. Shockingly, only 15% is due to technical knowledge.
Although an old research, I believe with all my heart, soul and personal experience that this finding is true to the dot.
A common believe, that mediocre technical skills with positive attitude can take a person to great extents where even a genius with bad attitude may not reach. It is a very common thing to mention about positive attitude, punctuality and good ethics in a CV; this is not done for the sake of adding verbiage but to make realize the employer that you know its importance and value. Most major multinational companies always conduct behavioral interviews before hiring a person, which is not just a routine exercise, but to gauge the personality of the interviewee.
However, the real question is, what are morals, ethics and good behaviors? The answer could be very subjective and descriptive but in-a-nutshell ethics or morality is the ability of a person to differentiate between right and wrong and adaptation of right path in any circumstance. Right and wrong itself is very subjective, however normal social norms can be taken as guidelines. For example, good behaviors may include: welcoming attitude, positive communication, social appreciation, truthfulness, punctuality, politeness, cleanliness et cetera.
A person with right moral values and good character shines in a crowd; if you are punctual, tidy and smiling you would always get an advantage in any form with any audience. If your attitude is positive, you are willing to show your hard work by taking challenges and are ready to deliver in tough situations with full responsibility and integrity, no-matter the technical quality of your work, you will ultimately stand-out in the average crowd. A mediocre project presented with positive energy, sincere enthusiasm and full responsibility will inspire any management more than a A-grade technically strong project presented with self-praise, egoistic win-lose mindset.
Remember a person with positive attitude will always be more welcoming than let’s say an Einstein with vanity & ego. Ethics, good behaviors and guiding principles make 85% of your recipe to success, so start working on these fronts, as statistically, they stand a better chance at developing your professional career, finally taking you towards your dream position.
